Report.az
Emin Iskandarov, the head coach of the Azerbaijani national team of junior boys' judokas, shared his thoughts on the European Championship held in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.
The expert gave an interview to "Report" about this.
He spoke about the team taking first place among boys with three gold medals:
"We expected athletes in the 50, 55, and 60 kg weight categories to perform successfully. We considered Anar Guliyev, Rasul Alizade, and Zeyd Alasgarov as candidates for the championship. We also had a strong opponent in the 55 kg category. Russian Alexey Taptygin is the current world champion. He also won a gold medal at the European Cup held in Guba and defeated Rasul Alizade in the final. But this time he lost to an Italian representative in the semi-final. Rasul became the European champion by defeating his opponent in the final."
E. Iskandarov said that Anar Guliyev in the 50 kg category is one of the best wrestlers in the team:
"He defeated Ilya Taptygin, the younger brother of Alexey Taptygin. We thought the chances were equal, but Anar outdid his opponent. We also expected a victory from Zeyd in the 60 kg category. We also hoped that athletes in other weights would win at least a bronze medal. Unfortunately, they lost in the first match due to technical errors. They lost due to a technical error in the matches they were leading. Our main athletes in the 81 and +90 kg categories could not participate in the competition. We decided not to take Amin Mehdiyev (81 kg) to the tournament because he had a slight leg injury. Subhan Akhundov (+90 kg), the European runner-up last year, could not go to the European Championship due to his exam. The absence of these judokas caused us to lose two medals."
The head coach reminded that they will participate in the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) in the same city in July:
"We want to repeat our success at the European Championship at EYOF as well. We have a high chance of achieving good results here as well. At the end of August, we will go to the World Championship in Bulgaria. After the European Championship, we gave our instructions to the children. We said that the European Championship is not the end. That result must be repeated in the world championship as well. Of course, it is difficult. There will be very tense meetings. But everything depends on preparation. We will work on the mistakes made at the European Championship."
It should be noted that the Azerbaijani national team completed the individual competition at the European Championship with a total of 6 medals, including 3 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze. Anar Guliyev (50 kg), Rasul Alizade (55 kg), Zeyd Alasgarov (60 kg) won gold, Narmin Agamirzazade (48 kg) won silver, Gulshan Huseynova (44 kg) and Leyla Alakbarova (48 kg) won bronze medals in the team.
With this result, our national team took second place in the overall team standings and first place among boys in terms of the quality of medals.
